After a handful of nights of wind, rain or both we had a great break in weather Thursday night and the owls POURED in. With the help of Frank, Danny, Jessica and Annie
219 Northern Saw-whet Owls and 7 Long-eared Owls were banded in about 11.5 hours. It got hectic at times, especially since all of the Long-eareds were caught between 4am and 6am, but we powered through, and managed to release our final owl before we could stop using our headlamps.
Last night was less busy, but we finished the night with 79 Saw-whets and one Barred Owl. And tonight, despite the heavy fog I set up a few nets for about an hour, just to see, and caught another Barred immediately!
Three white talons, though the one on the left seems to have a black core to it?
My second Barred of the fall
And my third, from tonight
Though not terribly difficult to take out of the net or band, Long-eareds are tougher than Saw-whets and do throw a wrench in your operation.
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